Lenin: a revolution is a miracle

As I begin my central treatment of miracle in Lenin and Theology, I have a wealth of juicy texts from which to draw, such as this one:

In certain respects, a revolution is a miracle. If we had been told in 1917 that we would hold out in three years of war against the whole world, that, as a result of the war, two million Russian landowners, capitalists and their children would find themselves abroad, and that we would turn out to be the victors, no one of us would have believed it. A miracle took place because the workers and peasants rose against the attack of the landowners and capitalists in such force that even powerful capitalism was in danger … The defence of the workers’ and peasants’ power was achieved by a miracle, not a divine miracle – it was not something that fell from the skies – but a miracle in the sense that, no matter how oppressed, humiliated, ruined and exhausted the workers and peasants were, precisely because the revolution went along with the workers, it mustered very much more strength than any rich, enlightened and advanced state could have mustered (Collected Works, vol. 32, pp. 153-4, 1921).

I have recently attended the world’s largest gathering of biblical scholars, the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, and I’ll have you know, Mr Moustache, that there are hundreds of biblical scholars discovering “subversive” threads within the pages of the Bible RIGHT AS WE SPEAK! At this rate, it is only a matter of years, perhaps months, before the radically subversive nature of every chapter and verse of the Holy Scriptures is readily able to be demonstrated. There is an alternative to revolution, Mr Moustache, and it is the slow and steady accumulation of “postmodern” and “literary critical” biblical scholarship.

I suggest you put down your Lenin and pick up the works of Mr Mark G. Brett.